eCards Educator Resources

Educator Resource Area

1. Research (2-3 hours)

Create an Account (or Log In)
Learners first create an account on programs.greenlearning.ca and then visit the eCards Landing Page to get started. If your learners are not permitted to create an individual user account, you could register a single class account for all learners, using a specific email address they can access.

Choose Topic, Research!
Learners can then choose a research topic by visiting our eCard Research Topics page. You may also want to encourage learners to consult other sources online, especially if their chosen topic isn’t one of our developed research topics yet. Before diving in, we have a blog post about combatting climate disinformation you may be interested in reviewing with learners first!

Learners can also use the Spiral Inquiry activity to help them with their research.

2. Create (1-3 hours)

Choosing an Audience
Alone or in small groups, learners consider what they want to communicate and to whom.

Writing a Message

The Advocating Change Handout and the eCards Educator's Guide both suggest ways to lead the class in working through questions of audience, tone and online communication. However, this creation step of eCards can be as unique and tailored to your group as you want to make it. We’ve developed a worksheet that you can use as a resource to help learners develop their message. For your convenience, the worksheet is also available as a Google Doc.

Imagery

We have examples of what eCards have been previously created on our eCards website and tools the learners may want to use to create their graphics. These tools are just suggestions - they can create their artwork by hand or however they choose, as long as they have a .jpg or .png of the artwork for the eCard upload.

3. Feedback (1-2 hours)

When learners are happy with their eCard graphics and message, they are ready for feedback. This is a great opportunity to support or challenge students! It’s also a flexible step; learners can seek feedback from you, or could practice giving peer feedback.

Feedback

Learners can send their draft eCard to you or their peers with digital classroom tools you already use (ie. Google Classroom, Teams), or with private class groups (explained below).

We believe in the importance of empowering youth to engage with topics they feel strongly about, with critical thought and evidence-based information. Your various learners may have unique and diverse perspectives, and we welcome their work. We also remind learners that:

Words hold power, and we hope your eCard can make a positive difference. We will not email or publish any eCards containing a message with discriminatory content, obscenity, or profanity.

Edit
Remember to schedule some time for students to receive their feedback and complete any edits they feel are appropriate. When their eCard is ready to go they can move on to the last step!

4. Send (1 hour)

After receiving feedback from you and/or your class, learners are ready to submit their eCard.

Your learners will need to fill out the eCard submission form with all the eCard details. This includes their school contact information, along with their artwork (uploaded as .jpg or .png), their message, and the decision-maker’s email address.

On this form there is a section for learners to consent to have their eCard posted to our website, and emailed out. Learners may consent to either of these options, or opt out entirely.

Once the learner has submitted their eCard, an email will be sent to GreenLearning Admin and the approval process begins. There is a review step we complete, then you'll be notified by email to give final approval. Once you've approved the eCard, we will send it out or publish it, as per the learner's consent. For more details on this process, check out the Approval Process on page 14 of the eCards Educator's Guide.

Learners who agree to publish their eCard on GreenLearning’s website will be covered under Creative Commons / Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licensing as per GreenLearning’s Privacy Policy.

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